Trucks of the 1st Infantry Division of the United States Army are loaded into a Landing Ship Tank in Dorset, United Kingdom, on June 5, 1944. The 1st Division was one of the two divisions that stormed Omaha Beach in Normandy, France, on D-Day. (AFP PHOTO/Getty Images)

In case you’ve been under a rock today, it’s the 70th anniversary of the World War II invasion commonly called D-Day. It has been a testament to the efforts of a number of different departments at The Post to provide the many ways we’re honoring the men who stormed the beaches of Normandy 70 years ago. I’ve put links to everything we’ve done — call it your one-stop-shopping for D-Day coverage.

The Denver Post’s photo blog, Captured, has a look at some rare color photos from the invasion, one of which you see above. From British and American soldiers preparing for the invasion in England to German prisoners being marched through the streets after France’s liberation, these images are some of the only color photographs taken during the war. This set of photographs is primarily from the German Galerie Bilderwelt, part of Getty Image’s exclusive Hulton Archive collection. The photos of the ruins of Saint-Lo are particularly breathtaking.

The Nov. 22, 1963, front page of The Denver Post is displayed in the Post library. (Jim Bates, The Denver Post)

Denver Post deputy city editor Jim Bates shared this picture taken in the Post newsroom and makes a good comment about the great effort of Post journalists 50 years ago.

As we’ve learned, the shots were fired at noon in Dallas — 11 a.m. our time. The paper you’re looking at isn’t the page from Nov. 23, but the page from Nov. 22. The Post was an afternoon paper at that time, so this paper — a three-star home edition — was assembled in three, maybe four hours and landed on readers’ doorsteps in the afternoon. It was done with hot type, on linotype, by workers whose job it was to set every letter, paste every column of type. It was an amazing job on a tragic day.

If you’re looking for a closer look at the pages and Post coverage, head over to the Archive blog, and you’ll get your fill.

Editors’ Notes note:I’ve edited my post to take out the reference to pasting columns, which is a “cold-type” process.

Front page of the Aug. 28, 1963, Denver Post showing coverage of the March on Washington. (The Denver Post)

I’m a sucker for historic front pages. In my former role as a designer, I’ve done a few historic front pages — the Sept. 11 attack, the Columbia explosion, the start of the Iraq War — so it’s always interesting for me to see how the editors who came before me decided to play the giant news of the day, be it local, national, or international.

You’ve probably heard that the 50th anniversary of the March on Washington is Wednesday. I thought it might be interesting to see the Denver Post front from that day. And unlike some of the papers on the East Coast, which had the big news on Aug. 29, 1963, our banner headline was on the actual day. At that time, The Post was an afternoon paper so it hit the streets with the start of the coverage, including an aerial shot showing the crowd gathering on the National Mall.

What do you get the state that has everything? A 2006 Post illustration by Linda Shapley and Glenn Asakawa turned sheet cake into Colorado and its counties.

In honor of our fair state’s 137th birthday, I offer a bit of (recent) Denver Post history.

For a number of years in the 2000s, city editor Dana Coffield and I produced a section called Colorado Sunday, which focused on things to do, people to know and interesting facts about the centennial state. I’m definitely biased, but readers seemed to respond positively to it. My favorite sections were ones where we focused on the state itself — either its history or its quirks. It has the Four Corners! The square dance is our official state folk dance! It has a tower in eastern Colorado where you can see SIX states!

The project, which two reporters worked on exclusively for 9 months, was one of the Post’s most ambitious. This was also one of our first opportunities to incorporate the web in the storytelling.

Unfortunately, it looks like most of the work has expired … lost to old servers and new content management systems, but I was able to track down the flash presentation – so cutting edge in 2003, quite dated now – via the Way Back Machine. We incorporated lots of online extras, some of which are still accessible, some not.

The Post recently hosted an event so readers could hear authors discuss research done for their nonfiction books. We called it “The Story Behind the Story — How Do Writers do Their Homework?” The authors are, or were at one point, Denver Post reporters. I have worked with all four writers on major stories in the past 26 years as a research librarian. As the authors discussed backgrounding, interviewing, note-taking and writing angst, I listened closely, but my mind’s eye was drawn to that rear-view mirror of life where our Denver Post working lives crossed:

The next stop on our virtual tour of the Denver Post newsroom is the long hallway you see above. It’s my time to talk a little bit about how long The Post has been part of the state, national and international landscape.

Being in charge of news operations at The Post means that, along with keeping track of supplies, budgets and the business of what we do, I also lead tours of The Post newsroom. I try to warn those who call to request, that what they’re going to actually see is a bunch of people sitting at computers or talking on phones. But in my 24 years in various newsrooms, I’ve found that what the public will think about how we do our job is a lot different than reality.

The Post is not the fast-talking, hard-charging newsroom of “The Front Page,” where reporters are making up stories more often than they’re covering them. Don’t even get me started on “Never Been Kissed,” where copy editor Drew Barrymore has daytime, Monday-through-Friday hours AND an assistant. AND gets to leave her job while she goes undercover at a high school. (As I said, don’t get me started on that one.)

So there’s something to be said for taking groups past people sitting at their desks, explaining what happens in the various departments and why the work that goes on there is what helps the news find its way to you. I’m transferring elements of those tour stops here, and here’s where I usually start: Our sixth-floor lobby, and the “O Justice” quote:

Election night, November 1962, when 60 staffers planned to cover the results for The Denver Post.

For 120 years, The Denver Post has been informing the people who live in what we long ago termed “The Rocky Mountain Empire.” Once denverpost.com came on board, that Empire got much larger, but our mission to inform, enlighten and entertain hasn’t changed.

Judging by some of the phone calls we receive, there’s a lot that our readers would like to know about how we work at The Post. This blog, which will bring you insights from many of the editors, is our best vehicle for providing the answers to the question, “What in the world were you thinking?”

I am the News Director at The Denver Post. I have been at The Post since 1999 in a variety of positions, including city editor and investigations editor. I previously worked at The Des Moines Register, and in Greenville, S.C.

I am a Colorado native who has been at The Post since 1996, working in copy editing and design before moving to administration. I created my first newspaper when the Broncos went to the Super Bowl in 1978.

I am the Digital Director for The Denver Post. I joined the Post’s web staff in 1999 — one week before the tragedy at Columbine High School. Prior to my journalism career, I worked in Washington as a legislative assistant for a New York congressman.

I am the Denver Post city editor and a Colorado native, who has worked at news organizations of all sizes. Raised to be a princess, I continue my adolescent rebellion by keeping bees and chickens in the backyard of a house my husband and I rescued from the wrecking ball. Read her full biography »